n was lying at a house
about half a mile distant, up the bay road.

"He acts very queerly," said Harry Powell, "just as if his wound had
affected his mind."

"Can we do anything for him?" asked Mrs. Ruthven.

"I do not know of anything now. But perhaps I'll think of something
later, aunt. I do not wish the colonel to suffer any more than is
necessary. He is a thorough gentleman."

"I feel you are right, Harry. He has given me an entirely different idea
of Yankees from what I had before," returned Mrs. Ruthven warmly.

The lady of the plantation became deeply interested in the wounded
colonel's case, and when the young surgeon went away she had one of the
negroes of the place hitch up a horse to the carriage and drive her over
to where the wounded officer lay.

The colonel was in something of a fever, and hardly recognized her. For
a long time he kept muttering to himself, but she could not catch his
words.

"The ship is doomed!" he cried suddenly. "We are going to pieces on the
rocks!" And then he began to speak of the army and of the terrible
battle through which he had gone.

"What can he mean by saying the ship is doomed?" was the question which
Mrs. Ruthven asked herself. "Can it be that he was once in a shipwreck?"

For a long while after this the colonel lay silent. Then he opened his
eyes and stared around wildly.

"All drowned, you say?" he exclaimed. "No! no! Laura must be saved! Save
my wife--never mind me! How high the waves are running! Where is the
child? Captain, why don't you put out to sea? Don't you see the rebels?
They are luring us to the coast! See, that rebel is stealing my child,
my darling Jack! Ha! we have struck, and I am drifting. Laura, where are
you? Save Jack! Look, look, they are retreating! The battle is won! Oh,
what a storm--can nothing be saved?" And then the poor man sank back,
completely exhausted.

Mrs. Ruthven drank in the spoken words like one in a dream. What was
this the wounded officer was saying? Something about a storm, about a
wife Laura, and a child named Jack!

"Can it be possible that he is speaking of our boy Jack?" she asked
herself, and then looked at the colonel's face more closely than ever.
The resemblance was more than striking, it was perfect. Give Jack that
heavy mustache and those wrinkles, and the faces would be exactly alike.

"He must be Jack's father!" she went on. "How wonderful! But what does
this mean? Why did he not claim Jack long ago?"